


Kiibo's Babysitting Adventure

by Signel_chan



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Babysitting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 21:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21483490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signel_chan/pseuds/Signel_chan
Summary: Kiibo may not be anyone's first choice to watch their child, but if anything he's reliable and he gets the job done. And he's pretty good at reconnecting with friends he hasn't seen in a while, by no choice of his own.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito
Kudos: 20





	Kiibo's Babysitting Adventure

In terms of who to call when a babysitter was needed, Kiibo wasn’t exactly anyone’s first choice, but he rarely had anything going on to prevent him from being able to help out, and he hadn’t caused any injuries or death to any small children yet so he was considered to be safe, if unorthodox to rely on. If anything, he was better to ask to babysit than someone like Miu was, because the last time _anyone_ had made that mistake, someone’s head had ended up wedged between two bars of a railing and she insisted that she had looked away for a second when it happened. So, really, calling on Kiibo was smart, if not a bit strange.

But he was always ready to assist in any way that he could, and that was what directed him to be standing outside the Momota family home one evening, a basket of toys he had thought would be age-appropriate in one hand and a vase full of flowers in the other. He thought it was polite to gift his friends with someone to thank them for allowing him to spend some time with their somewhat-pride and joy, even though he was the one doing them a huge favor by being willing to put up with the child for a few hours. In order to alert them to his presence, he had to set the basket down at his feet so that he could knock; he was expecting to have enough time to pick it back up and return to looking like the professional-ish babysitter he was pretending to be before someone let him in.

Instead, he was in the process of bending down to get the basket when the door opened, and he found himself right at the perfect eye-level to greet the child he was in charge of for the night. She was sitting on the ground, right at what Kiibo assumed were her father’s feet, and when she saw his robot eyes her whole face lit up. “Bobot!” she screeched, clasping pudgy hands together as her face lit up in a grin. “Dada, issa bobot!”

“That sure is a robot, great job!” Kaito replied, bending down to help Kiibo with his basket but taking a moment to gently pat the top of the girl’s head, messing up her already-wild wisps of purple hair more than they’d been. “Geez, here I am raising a little genius child, who else can say that their baby knows what a robot is?”

“I’m certain that many of our friends’ children could say that exact fact.” Kiibo didn’t mean to come off as correcting Kaito, but the way that he coughed and gave a “yeah, that’s probably true” in response let him know that his inability to read a room had reared its ugly head once more. “I mean, she is definitely the youngest child to accurately recognize me for what I am, so that would be excellent parenting on your part. Or, perhaps, would it be excellent parenting on Maki’s part?”

Once again Kaito was coughing in reaction to what he’d heard, but this time it was done as an attempt to stifle laughter. “Oh yeah, because it’s definitely Maki Roll who’s been staying home teaching her all about the world we live in,” he finally managed to say without too much trouble, at about the time he was standing back up, the basket once again in Kiibo’s hand and there being no reason to keep him waiting outside. “Come on in, I’ll show you where everything is while we wait for her to get home. And hey—are those flowers for us?”

“They certainly are, as thanks for letting me come by to watch Yukiko for the evening. I figured you would appreciate the gift.” Hearing that Maki wasn’t even there at the moment seemed strange to Kiibo, but he wasn’t going to question anything about it. The best he could figure was that she’d gotten kept at work later than she’d wanted and it was pushing into the evening she’d been planning for, but it wasn’t any of his business and so he wasn’t going to pry into it. Once he was inside and the door was properly closed and locked, he was directed in to where he assumed he’d be spending most of his time, which was the bedroom that clearly belonged to the little girl he was watching.

He was in the room alone for a moment, while the father first took the flowers to put them somewhere safe, then brought the child into the room with him, and in that time Kiibo was able to determine that he’d grossly misunderstood the level of child he’d be working with that night. He knew that Yukiko wasn’t even two years old, and he’d figured that he’d be spending his time chasing her around or playing basic games, but everything in the room implied that she was a bit more capable than that. Her floor was covered in board books that looked well-read, and she had many toys that were designed to stimulate a child’s growing brain, all of which were just waiting for her to play with them once more. “I told ya, she’s a genius child,” Kaito said once he was in the room with Kiibo, Yukiko held in one of his arms while she played with the collar of the shirt he was wearing. “It’s kinda crazy how smart she is, but maybe she’ll show off to ya while you’re watching her.”

“Maybe she will indeed,” he agreed, watching the girl as she attempted to fasten a button that clearly was never going to make it into its hole. “The last time I was able to watch her, she wasn’t capable of doing more than laying and trying to get on her side, so this will be an experience.” If he wanted to, Kiibo could have printed a picture from his memory of what he’d last remembered Yukiko to look like, but he was sure that if he explored the house a bit he’d be able to find already-existing pictures of roughly the same time. “It is an honor to get to spend time with her again, over a year later, sure, but things happened to keep us apart.”

“Look, I know you would’ve come over and helped us if you could but it was best if your tech stuff stayed far away from all the other machines that were in this place, last thing we needed was for something to go crazy with all that, y’know?” Smiling at his friend, Kaito made it obvious that he was trying to make it sound like Kiibo had been wanted around but limitations in his existence had prevented him from being able to do so, but the robot wasn’t sure if he should’ve believed that or not. “Honestly, it’s a miracle that we’re able to be here right now anyway, so let’s just forget the past and move on to today and the future.”

“Dada, go bobot pwease?” Yukiko asked, making grabbing motions towards Kiibo with one of her hands now that she’d given up on the button situation. He wasn’t expecting to be handed the child so early in the evening, but he made sure that his arms were available for her, so that when Kaito went ahead and handed her off he could carry her with ease. The girl was much lighter than the basket had been, but she still had some weight to her, which made sense given how round her face, arms, and legs all were, and she didn’t even seem to flinch at the metallic cold arms that now held her. “Hi-i-iya, bobot,” she greeted, puckering her lips towards Kiibo’s face.

“Hello to you as well, Yukiko Momota,” he said to her in return, knowing that she probably didn’t recognize her own name and that was fine. Hearing him say anything to her was enough to get her to start giggling, which in turn had her dad beaming at how well she was handling being in the presence of her robot babysitter, and that was enough to make Kiibo feel confident in how the night was going to go.

“You know, she doesn’t exactly…act like this once I’m not around, just so you’re aware,” Kaito warned, figuring that he should let the person who was going to be in charge of the girl for the night know about her most special quirk. “The second she doesn’t see me, she’s going to completely change on ya. At least, that’s what Maki Roll says she does, and I’d trust that.”

“Certainly, I’ll commit that to my memory bank right now.” As he looked at the little girl and how she was staring at him wide-eyed and seemingly eager to get to play with her “bobot” that she was excited to see, Kiibo didn’t know how much truth there was to what Kaito was saying, but he couldn’t discredit it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really anyone else he could ask for an opinion on the matter, for as far as he knew, he was the first babysitter the girl had been trusted with in a _long_ time. That brought up another thing that he wanted to address before he had complete control over the girl, but it was something that he wasn’t sure of the appropriateness of. “I do not mean to get into personal details, but what is the purpose for tonight’s outing? Are you two going on a date?”

“Something like that, yeah!” There was a childlike giddiness to Kaito’s reply, and his happiness was enough to get Yukiko to vibrate a little in Kiibo’s arms. “It’s been so long since we’ve been able to do it that I was going to take the first chance we got. Kinda sucks when you’re stuck at home and can’t leave for anything, makes you really wanna get out there and see the world you’ve been missing.”

Nodding, Kiibo didn’t understand a single bit of that sentiment as a robot, but he was going to act like he did anyway. “But you got to spend all that time stuck here watching your child grow up, which I’m sure you enjoyed, right?”

“Heh, yeah, there is that. We sure did spend a lot of time bonding while I was cooped up in this place, bet it’s a big part of why she immediately took to liking you.” Stroking his chin in thought, Kaito’s fingers quickly found themselves playing with his facial hair, which Kiibo had remembered as being a straggly goatee the last time they’d seen each other, but had turned into something that covered more of his chin area. “All those machines must’ve made her think that you’re kinda like one of them, and you’re going to keep her safe.”

“Just like those did for you?” he asked to clarify, because all Kiibo really had heard of the situation was that for a long time, the house he stood in had been filled with medical-grade machines meant to keep the man he was speaking with alive, and clearly they had done their job if he was still there to talk with him. When Kaito gave him a small nod, still looking deep in his thoughts, he decided that dropping the subject there would be appropriate.

For the next few minutes they found themselves standing in silence, the only noises coming from Yukiko as she attempted to get conversation going in her own way, and their quietness made it all-too-audible when the front door to the house came open again. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t expect to be doing it much longer,” Maki called out, making Kaito smile at the sound of her voice, while the child looked around for the source of the sound. “I’ll be ready here in just a moment.”

“Guess that’s our cue to finish setting you up for the night,” Kaito said, motioning towards the door to go back towards the main room of the house. “Last thing we need is for you to be unprepared, even with all your robot knowledge you can access.”

“Thank you for that mindfulness.” Looking at Yukiko and seeing her grinning at him, Kiibo felt that there was an awful lot of overpreparation happening on all fronts, but he didn’t want to cause any harm to this child that already adored him. “I suppose all I need to know is eating and sleeping routines, as everything else would be standard across children. I may not be anyone’s first choice for babysitter, but I am a reliable one.”

Kaito found that statement to be amusing, and as they went back to the other room he gave a basic rundown of the information that Kiibo felt he needed to be successful in his babysitting endeavor. “She’s not going to need anything to eat before she goes to bed, and she’ll be tired here within an hour or so, but once she’s asleep you’re going to have to sit with her and keep watch to make sure she doesn’t get up and start doing things on her own. It’s a habit she’s recently picked up, but it’s still a habit, she just gets up and starts playing and trying to read her books in the dark.” That was a fairly simple thing to remember for the night, and so Kiibo didn’t make any follow-up questions, even if he could have done so. There were many things he was interested in getting clarification on, but if Kaito was certain it was going to be an easy night, he wasn’t going to make it any harder on himself.

Within moments of them getting into the other room, they were joined by the other person who was at the house, Maki looking unamused at how the two were standing around talking as if there was nothing else going on. “Seems like you’re more interested in playing catch-up with an old friend than you are making good on your date night,” she said with an accusatory tone towards Kaito, who put his hands up defensively at the words. “I get it, Kiibo’s a great guy and all, but you seriously asked me to…”

“Get all dressed up, I know, but it’s gonna be worth it, I promise!” It was at that moment that Kiibo realized that this was the most “formal” that he’d ever seen Kaito dressed outside of an occasion that warranted it, even though the nice clothes he was wearing hung a little loose on his scrawny frame, something that would not have been true the last time they’d seen each other. That was the problem with the situation that had unfolded over the past year, how much it had changed the people involved in ways that Kiibo hadn’t been able to adequately process properly up until now.

Between the fact that the girl he was going to be watching had grown up so much, and the fact that her father had gone from the brink of death to like nothing had ever gone wrong in the first place, there was a lot to take in, and that was only two thirds of the equation. “You can go ahead and stop staring at me any time now, I know you’re recording me with those eyes of yours and I don’t think I like it.” Speaking with a huff, Maki called attention to something that Kiibo hadn’t even realized he was doing until she’d mentioned it, and he had to switch where his eyes were focused almost instantly. How he’d gone from categorizing what had been happening to looking Maki over from head to toe, he wasn’t really sure, but if he could feel shame he certainly would have been right then. “I bet Miu put you up to it, that nasty, kinky bitch.”

“Language, Maki Roll! You can’t say crude things where Yukiko can hear you, she’ll pick ‘em up in a heartbeat!” The girl didn’t seem to be aware of anything that either of her parents were saying, as she was still transfixed on Kiibo’s entire existence, but the meaning of Kaito’s warning was still valid. “Besides, I don’t think he was looking at ya to send pictures of you to anyone else, even though if he did they’d be treated with a _real_ sight. Y’know, you’re lookin’ lovelier than ever tonight.”

An expression of murder came across Maki’s eyes for a second, before her anger melted away and she sighed. “Thanks, I guess. Figured it would only be fair if I tried actually dressing up for a change, since the last time I did that, I…” She trailed off as she looked directly at Yukiko, who blew a raspberry in her mother’s direction even with her eyes still locked on Kiibo’s face. “Yeah, no, it’s been over two years since I last dressed this, I thought I just had to go ahead and do it now.”

“And it’s worth it, I assure you. You look amazing.” It seemed miraculous that Kaito was able to hold himself together while speaking to Maki about how she looked, based on how his voice was raising to higher levels and he was visibly stunned at her image. “I can’t believe I get to have you as my date tonight, I’m the luckiest guy alive!” That was when he went behind her and bent down slightly, putting his hands around her bare shoulders and giving them a shake, causing everything from her hair, to her chest, to the low hem of her dress to bounce a little. “How’d I end up with someone as gorgeous as you?”

“Don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick right now?” she asked, annoyed at how he was putting this display on in front of someone who could and would never forget what he was seeing, as well as their young daughter who wouldn’t care a bit about things. “I get it, you’re in love with me, let’s go before you decide you want to take this in a different direction than you’ve been planning for.”

As he laughed, he took his hands off of her shoulders, only to wrap his arms around her in a hug that had her even more annoyed than before. Kiibo couldn’t help but watch the two as they interacted, so many things having changed about them since the last time he’d been able to see them so carefree but so many things being the same. Just thinking about it was bringing up scores of memory files that he could look between, the last ones coming from the previous time he’d been invited over to the house, a few months after Yukiko had been born. That was right before whatever illness that had nearly killed Kaito had taken root in their lives, and so that right there was a major difference in the two scenarios.

The other major difference was the one that he knew he would be snapped at if he dared bring it up (and why he had been accused of doing any kind of recording). And while seeing Kaito a lot spindlier than he’d ever been was one thing, seeing Maki much bigger than she’d been was another; even then, calling it _bigger_ wasn’t exactly accurate, given that she was still the same height as always. She had always been able to snap a man’s neck without any effort needed on her part, but now someone could look at her and tell that she was capable of such a feat, and she didn’t seem to be too bothered by that change.

It was taking milliseconds for Kiibo’s photo memories to create a timeline for him to piece together, based exclusively on his interactions with the couple, explaining her half of the situation to him without a need for asking questions. He distinctly remembered a conversation that had cropped up at the baby shower their group of friends had put together a couple months before Yukiko had been born, where he had overheard Miu making some rude remark about how large she had gotten. Her exact words, thanks to mental audio playback that hadn’t ever lost that memory, were, “Goddamn, are you sure that there’s only one hellspawn growing in there?” and he remembered stopping helping with putting together some of the furniture to listen to how that situation developed, halfway expecting it to end with him having to remotely call for emergency services because Miu had been murdered on the spot.

“I’ve already explained this to you, and to everyone else who asks that same fucking question, but yes, I am absolutely positive that there’s only one.” Maki’s response came with several instances of her tensing up and having to calm herself from trying to cause a scene, especially with how skeptical Miu looked to hear those words. “Trust me, the only reason I look like this is because the doctors told me it was either let myself and the kid die, or have to put up with there being a lot more of myself until I can safely work out again. Obviously, I chose the second option, as bad as it sucks.”

From there he went back to the memory of the last time he’d seen the pair, when Yukiko was a few months old and was unable to do more than try to roll herself from one side to the other. Miu was there then, too (and he couldn’t remember why that was, it wasn’t important enough to be logged in the file’s code), and she was poking insults at Maki almost every time she opened her mouth. “Thought you’d said you’d start working out again, get back to being a thin bitch,” she said with a smirk, almost as if she found some kind of enjoyment in being able to make fun of a friend’s physical state. “Did you decide you like being the same size and shape as a small pig instead?”

Kiibo’s recollection of the event was crystal-clear, to the point that he could even see the way that one of Maki’s eyes twitched at the question she was being asked. By all means she was healthy-looking, and nowhere near deserving of being referred to in such a grotesque manner, but this was Miu she was dealing with and she was accustomed to the treatment from her. “As it turns out, trying to find time to go get a workout in more than once a week when you and your husband both work and you have a baby to take care of is a lot harder than you’d think. Leave me alone about how I look, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Never thought you’d submit to being—” The cutting off there wasn’t his memory failing him, it was the actual event that had occurred, as Maki had decided she wasn’t putting up with another syllable of Miu’s nonsense and had lunged at her, grabbing her throat and stunning her silent. He knew that there was more to the scene than that, but he’d seen enough to make a good comparison of how much things had changed over the past couple of years, and he didn’t need to watch Miu get what she deserved any longer.

“Oh great, he’s recording me for real this time. Get Yukiko out of his arms, I’m going to rip those eyes from his head before he can show anyone the footage he’s got.” Kiibo hadn’t even realized he’d started staring at Maki again while going through his memories, but the scene had not changed since the last time he’d been actively paying attention, which meant that everything had just happened in under a minute. The only way he could think of to clear his name would be to show her the last thing he’d recorded, but that was someone else’s personal footage that he’d been present for and she most likely wasn’t supposed to see it, and so his apologies and promises that he wasn’t doing anything of the sort would have to cut it. “Seriously knock it off if you’re really doing it, the last thing I need is for you to cause me to have to kill a former classmate of ours. Because I _know_ you’ll show whatever you see to Miu, and she’ll come at me. Again.”

“No, I promise that if I was recording, which I wasn’t, it would never get into Miu’s possession. I know how you feel about her.” Just in case, Kiibo held onto Yukiko a bit tighter, not wanting to relinquish his time with this precious little child until he absolutely had to. “Go off on your date, you didn’t get so dressed up for nothing.”

Biting her tongue as she held back whatever remark she’d come up with, Maki eventually gave up on the fight and turned her attention away from Kiibo. “He’s right, I didn’t do this for nothing. Let’s go before I change my mind and decide I’d rather just have a date night here at home.”

“You got it, Maki Roll! We’ll get goin’ right now!” The last thing Kaito did before they were both gone was thank Kiibo for being willing to help out for the night, giving Yukiko a couple kisses before heading out the door, assuring the babysitter that they’d be back before it was too late into the night.

That seemed like a strange thing to push as a reminder, especially since Kiibo was a robot who didn’t exactly have a “bedtime” to try to stick to, and he’d already been told that the girl would be asleep for the night before too long. “You handled your parents leaving quite well, no screaming or crying,” he told Yukiko, expecting to see her still staring at him in her wide-eyed glory now that she was alone with him. Instead, he was met with a completely different expression than anything he’d seen before, her face having soured entirely and a scowl upon her small lips. “Er, what’s with this change? Is this because of them leaving?”

“Bobot, down!” she demanded, sounding spiteful even though Kiibo hadn’t done anything wrong to her, and for lack of any reason not to do it, he followed her request. The second her feet touched the ground she was off, going as fast as she could back to her bedroom, which he had no choice but to follow her back to. She was in the middle of attempting to close the door when he slipped inside, which made her frustrated to see. “No, bobot, go ‘way!” she cried, waving her arms towards the still-open part of the doorway.

“I’m afraid I cannot comply with that,” he replied, looking at her curiously. With how she was wearing her anger on her face, it was beyond obvious that this child was an almost exact copy of her mother’s negative attitude, even though she had inherited almost every physical trait she could from her father so far. Her eyes were narrowed, her scowl only deepening, and she looked like she was on the verge of charging at him and trying to drag him out of the room. “Yukiko, I am here to watch you, I cannot leave you in your room without supervision. You must understand.”

She wasn’t even two years old, she wasn’t going to understand a thing about what he was telling her, and so the pantomiming to get him to leave as well as the demands for “bobot, go!” continued on. Eventually she’d have to tire herself out, unless she’d also inherited her father’s endless energy, in which case he’d be having to put up with things for a while, and that was what led him back to his memory banks. She had suddenly wanted him gone, the moment her parents had left, so what if he brought her parents back in a sense? Would that calm her down and get her to go back to being the sweet, docile child she’d been before?

Thankfully, he still had easy access to the memories he’d been looking at earlier, and so Kiibo switched on a projection function from his eyes and displayed a life-size replica of the girl’s parents from the previous time he’d seen them. This wasn’t from the incident that ended in Maki attempting to choke someone, but from earlier in that day, where the proud parents had been talking about the changes their lives had endured in the months since they’d had their daughter. He figured it would be best to leave the audio off for the moment, if only because he didn’t want to make Yukiko cry if she suddenly wanted one of her parents simply because of their voice.

The tactic worked to some extent, as it got her to stop demanding that Kiibo leave the room, but rather than go back to cheerful she sat on the floor at the projections’ feet, staring up at them with her scowl still prominent on her lips, surrounded by her chunky cheeks that were tinged with pink. “No Dada, no Mama,” she said after glaring at them for a few moments, before falling onto her back and crossing her pudgy arms in front of her. “Go ‘way! No!”

“It was worth a shot,” he conceded, turning the recording off. Either Yukiko recognized that they were not real and wanted them gone because of that, or she could tell they looked similar to the parents she loved but that they weren’t the exact same (even though they were, in fact, the same people, just before over a year of struggles). “You are quite the child, aren’t you, Yukiko?”

As expected she didn’t say a word to him, merely grumbling something to herself that Kiibo didn’t recognize as any words from any language. She rolled onto her side before picking herself up, stomping with heavy feet over to where the concentration of her toys was located, a pile of books the centerpiece. “S’ory,” she said just loud and clearly enough for him to hear, before she grabbed a book midway through the stack and pulled it out, causing everything around it to spill to the floor. While she toddled away with her book to look through it, Kiibo took it upon himself to clean up the mess she’d made, as well as straighten up the condition her room had already been in.

It did feel a bit strange to be playing maid to a young child, when she hadn’t even asked him to do it, but she had found her own way to occupy her time and he needed something to do as well. Yukiko would occasionally make noises of contentment, but the second Kiibo would look at her she’d be staring at him with a scowl, until she’d get bored of being angry and go back to looking at her book. She clearly wasn’t actually reading a thing, but she understood the concept of looking page-by-page and seeing everything one page had to offer before she moved on to the next one. “Would you like me to read to you?” he asked after they’d gone through their routine a few times, only for her to blow a raspberry at him and keep her eyes locked on her book. “I will take that as a no, sorry for asking.”

Eventually the room was as clean as he could get it on his own, and Kiibo found himself unsure of what else he could do to pass the time. Yukiko was about halfway through her book (he’d gleaned that it was the third in the set, and it was presumably about the color yellow, as the ones that he’d reorganized were about the other colors in the visible light spectrum in order, starting with red), and she didn’t seem even remotely interested in letting him get close to her. That was a trait she for-sure developed from being around her mother, and the fact that she’d managed to pick up that when her father was a beam of positive energy and friendliness was interesting.

“Perhaps I need to approach Yukiko from a different angle,” he told himself, stepping back so that he was inside the doorway and watching the girl in the corner from there. “She’s behaving much like Maki would if I were alone with her, and what would I do with Maki in this situation?” A pause, while the answer came to him. “I would leave her alone, without a doubt. Therefore, I should leave Yukiko alone as well.”

He made it most of the way into the other room before he realized that if her parents knew he’d decided to leave their baby alone in a room while she was still awake and alert, he would be barred from ever babysitting for anyone in their group again, just like Miu. As quickly as he could he went back, finding the girl exactly where he’d left her, except with the book on the floor at her feet and her eyelids fluttering closed only to snap back open. “Is someone tired?” he asked, not expecting a response and not getting one, which was fine by him. “As I recall your father telling me, you should be ready to go to bed here soon. Let me get you prepared for sleep and then you can be on your way.”

The second he went to pick her up, Yukiko started screaming at him, even though she had just looked like she was about to pass out. He had to fight with her to get her out of the corner and onto her bed, where he carefully managed to undo the cute dress she’d been wearing the whole time and get it off her body without ripping it. From there all he had to do was change her and successfully put her into her pajamas, which were predictably covered in stars and moons and looked like something someone had bought for her with Kaito in mind. She was not thrilled in the slightest to have cold robot hands touching her, constantly screeching, “Bobot! Go ‘way!” and kicking her legs at him the whole time, but once she was re-dressed she calmed down significantly.

She was already mostly asleep when she was finally laid down in her bed, but she was just awake enough to tell him, once again, to go away before she was unresponsive, curled up with one of her pointer fingers in her mouth. Kiibo nodded to himself at the accomplishment of getting her to bed without too much hassle, looking at how peaceful Yukiko looked in her sleep, before he went across her room to where her toybox was, something he’d gotten familiar with when he’d been cleaning, and sat down on it. “She acts like her mother when she’s alone with me, but she still looks like the spitting image of her father,” he remarked, visuals of the girl’s parents coming into his sight. “They are beyond lucky to have someone to share their love with, especially with how much like them both she is.”

Now came the waiting game, he knew, and there was enough to reflect on that he could easily pass the time just sitting on the toybox, but there were things he was interested in investigating before he left for the night. He slipped out of Yukiko’s room after ten minutes of being present for her sleeping, figuring that she was truly out for the time being, and for the first time he was able to look through the house on his own, getting a feel for the things he’d missed while he’d been unexpectedly removed from his friends’ lives for a year.

What took him by surprise was not how the house seemed to be mostly the same from the last time he’d been there (except the evidence of a young baby living there had been replaced by evidence of a toddler running around), but rather the fact that on the walls were actual pictures of the family. If it were just pictures of Yukiko, it would make sense, given that she was their everything at the moment, and a lot of the pictures were of her at different stages of her so-far short life. Some of them helped him fill in his mental checklist for how they’d gotten from the baby he remembered to the chubby girl he was in charge of that night, while others made him curious to know what had happened here and there.

The rest of the pictures, though, were not just of her, but of her and one or both of her parents. One was from right around the day she was born, so that made sense as to why it was present, and one was a holiday picture from the previous year, which would have also made sense if it wasn’t just the girl and her mother in it. Others included the little girl snuggled up next to her bedridden and color-deprived father, which was a common theme across several frames, and there were ones that had him laying almost lifelessly against Maki’s arm while she held Yukiko in her lap. If he were capable of actual emotion, Kiibo was certain he would feel something along the line of sadness to see these images, but instead he was able to use them as a rough explanation for things he wasn’t going to ask about.

He made his way into the kitchen, which was in complete disarray and seemed like it needed some serious attention. “If I clean this for them, it will be another way I have been useful to them tonight,” he realized, and so he began work on tidying up the kitchen as fast as he could. There were half-eaten meals scattered on the counters, stacked on top of each other, and the only things that seemed to have been fully enjoyed were containers of snack foods and easy-to-make microwave meals that he was sure had been easy to eat when things had gotten rough. By the time Kiibo made a noticeable dent in the kitchen, he’d taken out several bags of trash and had most of another one ready to go, and there was a tall pile of dishes standing in the sink.

“Bobot, what do?” he heard Yukiko ask, and his eyes flashed as if her innocent question was a warning for an attack. He turned and saw that the girl was rubbing her tired eyes in the entrance to the kitchen, standing while leaning against the wall for support. “Bobot, no Mama no Dada?”

“I assume you’re asking me where your parents are, to which I shall answer that they are still out on their date.” He’d been warned that she would get out of bed, but all Kaito had mentioned was that she would try reading her books in the dark, he hadn’t said a word about her going to find him if he wasn’t in the room. “You run back to bed now, this is not the time for a child your age to be awake.”

To be contrary to what she was being told, Yukiko sat down right in the doorway, giving a big yawn and smacking her lips together a few times. “’ungy,” she said after she wasn’t in the middle of her yawn any longer. “Bobot, ‘ungy.”

“I was not told what you can eat, Kaito specifically told me you would not need to be fed tonight so I…” Kiibo trailed off as he looked around, seeing if anything stuck out to him as something appropriate for a child of her age. He ended up rifling through cabinets, finding a multitude of snack boxes with notes threatening broken fingers if anyone touched them, but nothing seemed to be meant for Yukiko to be eating. “Well, uh, what do your parents usually give you when you want something?” he asked, hoping that she’d understand and they’d be able to make progress that way.

There was no such luck, as all Yukiko did was repeat that she was hungry. She must not have been _that_ hungry, though, as she was soon back asleep sitting there against the wall, allowing for Kiibo to pick her up and carry her back to her bed, setting her up for a good night’s sleep once again. If he were to babysit her in the future, being able to feed her would be a good thing to know how to do, he decided, and so he added that to the list of things to ask about when the appropriate time came.

For the rest of his babysitting experience, Kiibo continued working on the kitchen, making it clean enough that anyone could appreciate the effort he’d put into it. He would occasionally hear noises that he thought could potentially be Yukiko trying to get into trouble in her room, but she was always still asleep when he checked on her; the noise that gave him something real to investigate was the sound of the front door opening and two very distinct laughs filling the air. “Oh, it seems you have returned safe and sound!” he greeted as soon as he could get there to meet him, seeing the happy faces of the couple he’d been helping looking back at him in surprise. “And you seem…giddy. Why is that?”

“Just living the dream, honestly!” Kaito replied, resting an arm on the top of Maki’s head as she tried to control her bubbly laughter. It was unusual to hear her in such a mood, and Kiibo would’ve asked about it had he not noticed how flushed her face was, and how she was having a hard time keeping her eyes focused on any one point at any time. “If you’re ever lookin’ for a good time out, you’ve gotta go somewhere with Maki Roll. She might’ve run up a huge bill with everything she ordered, but she had fun doin’ it, that’s for sure.”

“Sh-shut up,” she stammered in return, her words barely able to escape her mouth before she was laughing again. She stumbled to the closest chair she could find, sitting down and kicking her feet up to get her shoes off, rubbing the dark marks they’d left from how tight they were squeezing her toes. “They had a special on some rea-a-ally cheap drinks tonight, and between those and all the food we had at the table I was having the time of my life. Who even was I before I knew how to enjoy stuff like this?”

“I don’t know, but I loved ya then and I still love ya now.” Blowing a kiss in her direction and starting up another round of giggles, Kaito had to turn his attention back to Kiibo, who was going over the mental checklist of things he needed to do before he left, most importantly going and getting his unused basket back. “Thanks for watching Yukiko for us tonight, as you can tell we, uh, _really_ needed the time together. How was she?”

“Fine, as I expected her to be. But are you aware that she is completely different when you are not around?” Kiibo was not surprised when Kaito nodded at that being pointed out to him, nor was it a surprise when he pointed towards Maki as being the reason for that. “I figured as much. She was easy to handle, especially since she wanted little to do with me once you were out of the equation. The one thing was that she got up a bit ago and asked for something to eat and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Er, yeah, about that, let’s talk somewhere else.” Pointing towards Maki a second time, before bringing a finger to his lips to indicate secrecy, Kaito headed for Yukiko’s room and Kiibo followed without any sort of hesitation. They went into the girl’s darkened room, her still visible in her bed due to the light through the window and the nightlights in her wall, and that was where he sighed and shook his head, admiring his daughter’s sleeping form while thinking about other things. “If she asks you for anything to eat, you’ve gotta tell her she can’t have it unless it’s a meal. We’re workin’ hard on limiting how much anyone here gets to eat, because things got…bad there for a while.”

“I suppose that means my method of giving her nothing and having her fall back asleep was the right thing to do,” Kiibo said after grabbing his basket of toys, knowing not to bring it for the next time because Yukiko wouldn’t be interested in playing with him. “I was worried that I had done the wrong thing, so it’s nice to know I didn’t.”

Kaito had to stifle a laugh with the back of his hand, trying to keep his volume down while there in the girl’s room with her sleeping. “Oh yeah, you did the perfect thing. I’d have just told her it was bedtime and there’s no snacks at bedtime, but ol’ Maki Roll would’ve caved and given her whatever she wanted. She knows her own snacking habit’s a stress thing, and she’s working on it, but that’s another piece of her that rubbed off on Yukiko and it’s not as easy to keep as the ‘being grumpy when her dad’s not around’ thing is.”

“I will remember this for next time, certainly.” Pausing, realizing that he hadn’t once been told their would be a next time, Kiibo quickly added, “Unless you would rather me not return, in which case, I will provide my knowledge to whoever you let watch her next.”

“Most everyone else we’d trust with her knows already, but you did a fine job with her tonight. I’d be cool with letting you back, and if Maki Roll was in her right mind she’d agree with me. You might’ve just become our regular choice for babysitter…as long as there’s nothing out of our hands stopping you from being here.” At that point, Kaito forced a smile, and Kiibo knew that he was doing that only because he didn’t want to dwell too much on how it was his fault that had happened in the first place. “Hopefully it’s not over a year before you get to come see us and Yukiko again, yeah?”

Kiibo glanced at the girl, seeing the way the light reflected on her wispy purple hair, her finger back in her mouth and her legs curled up, and gave a determined nod. “I would rather it be next week than next year, I don’t think my memory banks would appreciate having to play catch-up with her milestones a second time.”

“Then it’s settled, me and Maki’ll go out on dates every week, and you’ll be here watching Yukiko for us! Foolproof, yeah?” As much as Kiibo knew that it wasn’t a foolproof plan in the slightest, he didn’t want to cause any drama and so he went along with it. Now he could say that he was exactly two people’s first choice of babysitter, and while that wasn’t many, it was still comforting to know that they were willing to keep him at the top of the list. And perhaps, over time, the little girl who so affectionally called him “bobot” would learn to like him just as much as her parents did.


End file.
